The Dog Days Of Summer

I have to remind myself that these really are "the dogs days of summer", it's normal for this time of year. I also have to remind myself that during last winter and all winters before ... I begged and prayed for days like this, wanting to trade 5° with a windchill below 0° for 90°+ "and I don't care how humid it is." So with that in mind, it wasn't surprising to feel a little 'heat' this morning around 8:30am as we took off for the first walk of the day. No, that isn't the same photo as yesterday but pretty close, of Sadie sprinting to the field.

Stella confirmed to me this morning that she definitely has a new routine as I predicted would happen last week. This morning was 'total ignoring' ... not even a response that she even heard me calling her as she walked next to the house heading north, then a sharp right turn up to the northern part of the yard. There was no way I was going to let her walk to the neighbors house.

I could tell though that as she made a opposite turn she was looking for a spot and luckily she did a complete 360° turn back into the field to relieve herself. I still had to walk her direction because as soon as she finished she walked right by the property pole heading north ... I had to jog across the field to make her change her mind. I never got all the way to her before she turned around ...

She walked along the edge of the yard and field as slow as possible. I may have gotten her to change direction but she was still going to show me who was in control as she walked in 'ultra' slow-motion all the way to the start of the path and then acted as if there was never a problem of her potentially escaping.

Sadie didn't care what Stella and I were doing ... she had her own plans and was into tracking scent.

How nice it is to let Sadie be on her own. When I let Heidi or Winston on their own during the walk, they might veer off a few feet from the path to check out something but would always keep walking without me saying a word. Stella just flat out refuses to move when she finds something. Not until I walk within a foot of her or touch her collar does she move in our direction.

Sadie showing that bloodhound speed she has as a ten year old.

It was harder than yesterday but I finally got Stella to move around the first turn. By this point in the walk I am almost exhausted ... not my legs or lungs ... my voice. Way too much verbal herding this morning.

I guess she was trying to prove a point as she walked right on the path by herself and slow as possible.

It was too hot yesterday afternoon to wash the Z4 and the same this morning. I like washing it in the shade with a cool breeze. I have about four more days to get that done before it rains. This time I WILL put the car cover back on it when I am not driving it.

The wind was not blowing but I found the leaves at the top of the ~100' Sycamore tree looking a little different. They were all facing SW, the same direction that our normal winds come from.

This was at the edge of the yard next to the field. I hate seeing this because it tells me the yard moles have returned ... I WILL buy and apply more grub worm killer to save my yard. I didn't do it last summer and it was a swamp as we tried mowing it.

Stella strolled in from the morning walk, very casual and not a care in the world. She would do her normal after walk 'cool down' ... some water, lick her legs and feet to get the morning dew off, then walk in and lean into my desk chair as she lowers herself to the floor to sleep, so I can hardly move if I need to get up. Later she will move her nap right up next to the kitchen island until it's time for her lunch. Rough life.

By 11am I knew I was going to have to do something today otherwise it was going to be a long slow day. I sensed a trip to the library might be in the plans. I also thought of taking the FJ out to check out some of the local area and see if I could pull over and takes some blog worthy photos. I seem to do most of my outdoor activity by 1pm ... unless I have cooler temps like I did on Saturday morning.

None of those possible plans happened.

After view today's Stage 4 of the Tour de France that I had taped from early this morning  but fast forwarding through commercials and some of the race, I was about to leave for the library when I thought a short siesta might be nice. Three hours later all of us woke up and barley moved. It was like we had been hit with some sort of sleep chemical. Thinking the hounds would all run for the door to go outside, they got up from the cool wood floor in the bedroom and moved to their other sleeping spots in the living room and went right back to sleep.

Can the humidity sneak into the house and infiltrate the air conditioned room for them to act that way? Or just lazy like their slave? (me)

My recycling center told me of the changes in their industry when I stopped by yesterday. I am no longer allowed to drop off clean glass or even dirty glass ... no glass is allowed to be recycled. He told me China is paying a lot less money this year for paper, cardboard and nothing for plastic. In fact they have stop buying plastic from the USA. I have a bag of audio cords, electric wiring and plugs from past electronics that I use to recycle for fee but this time I was going to have to pay to have them recycled. I have a feeling within the next year I will be back to paying for garbage pickup and fewer things will be recyclable.

This morning after our walk while I was on the computer, I thought I felt a tick crawling on my leg which is normal after our walks but it was a flea !!!!! Hard to get rid of once they are inside the house. Not happy at all about that. I have found very few ticks on the dogs this year, even without their annual dose of Nexgard.

As usual I ran out of my data yesterday, one day before my billing period ends. I'll get a new 20Gb supply tonight at midnight. I used so much more date this month as I was downloading or uploading my CDs into iTunes. It wasn't that that caused the data increase but having to search for that album cover in Images so I could download that photo to iTunes to match the album. Most of the music had their 'album art' just a click away.

So although I have had free data from yesterday morning until midnight tonight ... photos load much slower, some websites load much slow because the download speeds are a little better than the 'old dial-up' speed, clicking a little over 1Mbps instead of my normal 45-48Mbps. So there are advantages and disadvantages to going over my data limit. Of course if I woke up earlier or stayed up much much later, HughGen 5 gives me an additional free 50Gb of data per month ... but only between 2am-8am.

We will take our 'pre-game' walk at 6:30pm, first pitch of the Reds game at 7:10apm followed up by watching the Cubs in San Francisco starting at 10pm local time. Maybe staying up late last night to watch the Cubs game is why I was tired today?

Asleep or awake, retirement is always good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Take A Day Off

It was another nice day today, with the morning walk taken in 71° weather and a slight cool breeze from the south. The big difference was, my feet were dry during and after the walk, in a field that had heavy rain-like dew in the shaded areas. How did that happen? I wore my North Face snow boots again, just like last summer. Stella was so excited about walking this morning she was the first one out the door with a big nose to nose race between her and Sadie, on who would be first outside.

With the sun reflection this morning different than yesterday's late afternoon, I had a better view of the mowed yard. I couldn't help but post this photo this morning after admiring the change a sharp blade made yesterday. July brown is the lawn color of many houses here locally. We do not have a water shortage, nor is it expense to use water but I don't see a lot of people that water their lawns like I have in the past. I have not watered my yard in years and doubt that I do this summer.

As Stella stepped into the field ahead of me I was happy I made the choice that I did in footwear. As of this morning there is no need to look for another pair of cheap rain boots that are low cut, not the ones that are knee high. The snow boots will do the job and it's only a 15 minute walk at the most. There is no other time in yard work that I get my feet wet.

Sadie was back in her routine of exploring scent during her walk instead of eating, like yesterday.

Stella was also back in her old routine of ignoring anything verbal and wandering with no specific plan in place. I wish I could be as laidback as she is. It took a lot of verbal herding of her today to finish the morning walk. There were even three separate times I had to backtrack and just the touch of her collar got her to move in our direction. Much like the mother I saw the other day in Walmart with her young child ... but there no collar was involved.

I am sure the gardening and plant experts can name this as soon as they see it. I can't. If a name or a plant is related to sports then I am pretty quick recognizing something. Otherwise my memory sucks on plant names, song names, shopping lists and what I had for breakfast yesterday.

Stella followed her path slowly angling towards Sadie and I. She seemed to be feeling pretty good today as I witnessed a little more energy from her this morning. Of course when you compare her speed this morning against 'slow motion' I guess anyone or any hound would look energized.  LOL

Sadie heard nothing, saw nothing, tasted nothing ... only smells were her focus this morning.

As soon as she gets back inside after these morning walks, she sleeps soundly all the way until lunch is served. Where was Heidi this morning on such a nice day .... stretched out on the couch snoring.

Thanks to a couple of comments yesterday, I left my camera setting at 'auto no flash' and will keep it there. Now my brain is searching the difference in distance .. this was taken at 135mm. I wonder how long these rolls of hay will stay here? Obviously they don't need the hay until this winter, but they usually have it picked up within a month of baling it. Not this year.

As we made the first turn this morning, the air was full of birds singing. No butterflies were seen and that beagle we saw yesterday was nowhere on the horizon ... I kept looking for it just in case.

I've never been able to get rid of those 'elephant skin' patches you see on Stella. Different creams have been tried, all the creams were for canines only.

Unlike yesterday, at this point of the morning walk, I had nothing in my mind for today's plan. When you are retired you really don't need a plan but what it showed me, that brief one day slap in the face motivation had vanished as fast as it appeared yesterday. Unless I want to drive to Bloomington to pick up a new turntable, I didn't get anything done besides watching the Reds game in Chicago this afternoon.

Turntable???? Did I say a turntable??? Yes I did. At 34 years old, with a new belt, that old LP vinyl record was sounding great the other day as it streamed through my brand new Yamaha receiver. Then a strange noise ...  then a screeching noise!!! I knew something major had happened. With my small camping LED flashlight I was able to find the cause. When a stylus is that old, plastic ages and breaks. The stylus needle had broken off from the cartridge.

After spending a few days online searching for a stylus replacement and then a cartridge replacement, I was finding that the replacements suggested of course were priced high, throw in some shipping cost and I was approaching the cost of a new turntable ... that was a MODERN turntable ... they now connect a USB cord to your computer so you an download songs from a vinyl LP into an MP3 file. Pretty amazing.

So yesterday morning, or was it Friday morning ? ... I started going through all of my vinyl records to see how many were duplicated when I bought a CD years ago. I wanted to double check on whether I really needed a turntable or not.  Luckily I did not have to go through the whole collection. Halfway through the first handful of albums, almost every album I looked at was not on cassette tape nor CD ... "case closed" I'll get a new turntable. Those LPs that I did see I wanted to play again. {By late afternoon I had almost decided to not buy a turntable but to take that same money and purchase those albums that were only on vinyl, electronically or on a CD. I may rethink that option whether to spend money on something that may not be used a lot.}

It was about this same spot yesterday that I saw a glimpse of something up ahead by the edge of the field, not knowing if it was a rabbit or a small dog. I double checked this morning to see if the beagle had come back but not really expecting to see it. I had a feeling it was just visiting neighborhood yesterday.

I am not sure how many of you have dogs. Nor do I know if you take your dogs for walks off leash, giving them total freedom, but this is a fine example of a bloodhound being stubborn, just as their AKC description states. It is also shows it was one of three times I had to walk back to 'start' to grab her collar to get her to move in our direction. Some times Stella was start walking our direction once she sees me walking towards her. Sadie is standing right behind me when I took this photo ... also waiting.

I like this view of the field ... it is a good way to show what kind of day to expect ... minus high temperature readings. It won't be long before all those green leaves will be different colors.

Looking at the treeline of the Mahogany trees behind the house as I walked back home, I noticed a section that did not have leaves this year. I wonder why? That is just not one Mahogany tree like my friend thought it was a few years ago but a group of small ones. As I type this I am following that leafless tree limb down toward the bottom of the photo and know it's a single limb a few feet away from the others ... and I remember it was like this last summer also. It looks healthy.

This section is to the north of the front yard on the field side of the property line. I know why these trees look like they do. It was a couple of years ago when I decided to burn all the dead leaves and brush that had collected over many years between the saplings on the north side of the yard. The flames were high enough to shoot up into those trees and was so big that a car passing by on the highway decided they would call the fire department for me. He didn't know that I had things under control. It didn't take long for the local volunteer fire department to put my fire out. Like the bank on the opposite side, the bare ground from burning brought back that same wild growth 3x as thick.

I have said it before but I need a chair up in this area. To me this is the best part of the yard. A good 10° cooler even in the hottest days of summer. That single tree in the center of the photo is the tree that has no leaves. It is not a problem mowing and trimming the grass around it but maybe I should cut it down to ground level.

With the mower raised back up one notch to a 3" cut I will be able to miss a week in my mowing schedule. We are looking at a couple of days it might rain but in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana, those forecasts can change within 5 minutes.

The afternoon turned out to be a pretty lazy day. I watched the Reds game until 5:15pm when Sadie couldn't wait any longer for her her afternoon walk. A little too hot for me but we took off anyway as the Reds game looked like it was going into extra innings.

I had planned for some afternoon photos but the hounds had other ideas. While they were outside after lunch I was pouring a new 40lb bag of dog food into the sealed storage container. I grabbed the camera expecting that Heidi might be sunbathing in the front yard while the bloodhounds roamed the field.

How wrong I was ... all three were standing at the door wanting back inside. Within 5 minutes ... all three hounds had chosen their afternoon napping spots and were sound asleep. So with a little free time until the baseball game I installed Firefox Quantum on my laptop, imported all the current bookmarks and did the latest updates to Firefox. Now that I have blocked autoplay for videos, I really like using that browser. It has the security of Safari and the features of Google Chrome.

The suns reflection told me the Z4 needs washed. With the rain no longer in the 5 day forecast I'll wash it in the morning and then do a little weed pulling in front.

It turned out to be a pretty lazy Sunday, not really a surprise after all the work I did outside yesterday. I have a tape of the IndyCar race today in Iowa and the 2nd Stage of the Tour de France to watch tonight.

Otherwise the weather was beautiful again today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

A Rabbit Almost Runs Into Me

Sadie was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to start our day and the morning walk. A terrible night of sleep led to a late wake up time, thus the daily routine slides down a few hours. Not that it mattered, it was cold even with the late arrival. What was a slow day in 'the tropics' yesterday turned into some excitement this morning.

Okay ... I admit it. In yesterday's blog post I used the word "Russia" in the title to see what kind of response I would get either by comments or by the number of visits. It was slow and in most cases if the post title doesn't have some sort of drama in it then there is less interest. I compare it to the line of traffic slowing down so they can get a look at the accident on the side of the road or the other lane of traffic. Sad but true.

I knew this morning something was up. Sadie and Stella never stopped once they got into the field. I was just an after thought to them. They had plans evidently and I wasn't included. Yet I was the one that saw the excitement this morning.

BTW, I'm glad that Ed explained to me that the Russian traffic was actually automated bots, collecting links from outside their domain to improve their traffic. I can handle bots better than attempted hacks to the blog.

As the hounds charged up the side of the field nonstop Stella was about to head right to the far corner of the field but once she heard "over here", her and Sadie proceeded in our normal direction. Sadie decided she would cover the back of the field for any deer scent ... Stella took control of the middle of the field not quite to the ATV path.

I was enjoying the sunshine, the cool crisp weather. I was happy that the hounds finally slowed enough that we all were on our normal pace. They had not sprinted to the north woods where I would have had to start sprinting if that were the case. So all was good. With the late start I knew the photos would have better color to them compared to the ones we take a few hours earlier. Plus sunshine is always more helpful than the dark overcast skies.

While taking photos of the hounds and glancing over the field area I saw nothing ... it happened in a split second. Too fast for me to even raise my camera to catch it on film. I have no idea where the rabbit came from or how close it was to Stella but it showed its white tail and record sprinting speed just in front of her.

In fact it ran close enough to me I thought I felt it hit my hiking boot!!! It could not get to the field on the other side of the short wire fence fast enough. Stella had come to close to it as it hid in the deep grass and decide it was time to escape.

If a basset hound (Heidi) would have been around, I would have heard instant baying and their short legs would have been moving as fast as possible to catch the rabbit. Basset's are bred to flush rabbits out and then chase them into heavy brush. Once the brush is so thick the rabbit panics and stops. I saw this happen in 1989 when I took my basset Sadie with me to heavy brush area by the golf course. It happened just as I described.

Once Stella picked up the rabbit scent she became a little more excited yet she had no idea just how close that rabbit was to us and how far away it was now. These are the photos in sequence of how she reacted. She was moving faster than the stop action the camera captured.

She could tell it had been there somewhere but she couldn't find it.

In the meantime Sadie finally caught on and went racing down the edge of the field, right to the point where I saw the rabbit sprinting into the field behind us.

Yes Sadie ... that's the spot the rabbit jumped through the heavy grass and over into the field.

With all of that excitement over with, it was like a normal walk to the hounds. They turned for home like nothing had happened. While they ran for home, I was thinking about raking leaves today.

This gives you a better idea where they have been running to the past few days. The photos that I zoom into makes it look like they are close to the highway but as you can see they are stopped quite a distance away from the highway. Basically they are in the middle of the lower field between my house and the neighbors, just to the right of the 'alternate' path.

Same position but zoom'd. See how close the highway looks in this photo?

Stella was going to let me know she was still in charge of this walk this morning. Sadie and I might want to get back inside but Stella was going to take her sweet time and wasn't moving any faster with me calling her name.

By this time she is smelling either rabbit scent or those from the field cats.

Although during the winter with snow on the ground I can see deer tracks moving down that small hill around the tree, then around the corner of my house, diagonally down the front yard, crossing the driveway into the field across the highway.

With the sunshine, the slight wind and the perfect direction from the N/NE for raking leaves ... I'm thinking of clearing out the north side yard and raking the backyard toward the burn pile. I am going to take my big powerful electric leaf blower and blow the leaves along the driveway fence down the drive near the highway and let the traffic blow them away. Or I could move them to the middle of the gravel drive and build my infamous "wall of flame". My co-workers use to comment on the "wall of flame" at work the next day after they saw it on their way home from work.

Plus I need to get the leaves you see raked out of the yard and burned so I have time and complete focus on repairing the Z4 when the parts arrive.

I might post again later tonight about any afternoon excitement. What do you prefer?  The longer post once per day at the end of the day or one or two shorter posts (still 18-22 photos) late morning or mid-day?

Basically I post most of the time when I have a free period in my day, depending on what I have going on.

The hounds were sound to sleep five minutes after their walk. It's so quite while I write this you could hear a pin drop. It's another hour until their lunch and the the 'real day' will start ... things don't seem to happen around here until after their lunch around noon.

Perfect weather today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.